Secrets of the Forsaken: Into the Depths of Dread

by Julian Hobson, Lorene Shyba, Jared Tailfeathers, Alex Soop, Jessica Theroux Narrated by Julian Hobson, Lorene Shyba, Jared Tailfeathers, Jessica Theroux, Laurier Tiernan, Maeve Wills, Austin Andrews, John Heerema, Cary Thomas Cody

Overview

Secrets of the Forsaken plunges you into a realm of dark fantasy, supernatural terrors, and chilling horror. These tales of restless ghosts, vengeful poltergeists, and seductive, forbidden magic will leave you questioning what is real and what is ... otherworldly. From occult secrets and sinister rituals to haunting glimpses of the afterlife, and fearsome creatures of the forest, this collection captures the terrifying and the unexplainable.

Through vivid narration and bone-chilling soundscapes, Secrets of the Forsaken weaves ancient Indigenous oral traditions with bold new creativity, forming an experience that is both timeless and transcendent. Featuring original stories by Julian Hobson, Lorene Shyba, Jared Tailfeathers, Alex Soop, Cary Cody Thomas, and more, alongside chilling classics by Mary Shelley, Helena Blavatsky, Charles Dickens, and Akutagawa Ryunosuke and others, this audiobook immerses you into the depths of dread, mystery, and dark enchantment. More about the authors and performers at durvile.com.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940194779123
Publisher:	Durvile Publications Ltd.
Publication date:	02/01/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Theatre of Sacrifice

By Maeve Wills

—-

Others speak of marching to their sacrifice with devotion on their lips and glory in their hearts. For me, it's nothing like that. The so-called honour of it is nothing but punishment, wrapped in ceremony. I'm eighteen. I should be chasing pleasure, uncovering life's possibilities. Instead, I'm strapped to a plank, shuttled through the streets of Athens, my ankles bound by cords that gleam like gold but bite like knives.

Each jolt sends waves of nausea rolling through me. Spectators line the passageway, their rhythmic cacophony rising like a verdict, hammering in my skull. What are they even cheering for? How can they watch me tied up like a lamb and call it noble? I've seen their faces before—laughing in the market, arguing over olives. Now they're gods, complicit in my fate. I try to make sense of their words, but they blur together, relentless and oppressive. 

The cords bite into my skin with every jolt. My body aches, but it's the weight of their eyes that crushes me most—the spectators, their faces blurred yet unyielding.”

This is what I get for being born here, now? My whole life—what was it for? Just to end up like this? 

A windblown Chorus rises above the din, grating against the air, each tone clashing like mismatched puzzle pieces. Every note, burrowing under my skin. It's not just sound—it's a sharp, unrelenting force that claws at my bones.

Then I hear it. My name. Soft, distorted, impossible to ignore.  

“Lenaea,” a voice sings, low and reverent. It brushes against me like wind on glass—fragile and piercing.

Another voice follows, harsher, slicing through the first like a blade.  

“Bearer of innocence. Do you see your purpose?”

I freeze, resisting the knowledge already etched in my fate. The chorus wraps around me, suffocating:

“The chosen walks the sacred path; the threads tighten with her steps.”

A chill grips me as I strain against the bindings. Are they trying to terrify me? To prepare me? Or is this some prophecy I can't escape?

The plank beneath me jolts forward, carried by unseen hands. The passage opens into a grove cloaked in twilight. Ancient, gnarled trees stretch skyward, their branches—a canopy that chokes out the light. The air clings to me, thick with the scent of damp earth and metal—like blood soaked into the soil. Roots quiver as the chorus swells, carried on the wind.

“Do you feel it, Lenaea? The sacred path?”

The grove murmurs, the trees leaning in as though they're watching me. Tangled roots rise from the ground, draped in wilting garlands. Their cloying sweetness mingles with the sharp tang of decay. The chorus cuts through, sharp and clear:

“To die is to bind our mortality to the divine.”

I pull at my restraints. “What do you mean?” My voice is hoarse, barely audible.

The answer comes, cold and unyielding:  

“A thread pulls. It will not let you go.”

The plank lurches forward, the roots shifting beneath me. My vision blurs, my thoughts pounding against the deafening roar. Am I already dead? Or is this the first step into something worse?

The grove opens into a clearing, and blinding light forces my eyes to shut tight. I am still strapped to the plank, and when l open my eyes, I am at the centre of an amphitheatre's orchestra stage. This is no ordinary performance space—it's the heart of our Greek theatre, where the mortal and the divine converge. 

Above me, thousands of spectators chant in unison. Their cries reverberate but I do not comprehend. Their faces blur into a vast, collective force, binding me to the stage. 

My gaze locks on the backdrop skene, its carved stone walls alive with images of sacrifice. My stomach lurches as I spot a familiar figure among them: a shadowed version of myself, a face frozen in terror. Is this a cruel coincidence, or am I staring at my own fate?

From the skene's yawning doorway—a black void that devours the torchlight—masked figures emerge, their movements deliberate, ritualistic. The satyrs follow, their goat-like legs striking sharp, rhythmic beats. Their masks, etched with savage ecstasy, seem alive, their bodies raw with untamed desire.

One satyr lingers in the shadows, his presence undeniable. When he steps into the light, the others retreat, their heads bowed.

He raises his arms, his voice cleaving through the stillness: “It is time. The play will unfold as it must. Step into the story Lanaea.”

The crowd falls to a taut silence, the air thick with reverence and anticipation.

The satyr steps closer, his eyes fixed on mine, and speaks, his voice a deep, resonant murmur that pierces the quiet: “You tremble, and that is good. Fear tempers the fire within; resistance sharpens the edge of the soul.”

My eyes stay fixed on him, unable to look away. “Who are you?” I ask, the question raw and unguarded, as though the answer might explain everything.  

A faint smile curves his lips. “What am I? A guide. A test. The fire you fear and the escape you crave.” He steps closer, his presence overwhelming. “Tonight, Lenaea, I am yours.”

The spectators' excitement explodes, crashing over the amphitheatre like a wave. 

My eyes dart back to the skene. The etched figures seem to breathe, eyes following my every move, shifting into a story I can't tear myself from: a girl carried into a grove, brought onto a stage, and consumed by darkness. The final image is clear—her soul held aloft like a trophy.

The satyr gestures to the carvings. “This stage knows your story better than you do,” he says, his smile widening.

The plank jolts beneath me, and suddenly I'm weightless, rising as though the stage itself has claimed me. The satyr stands below, smiling. His golden fur shimmers in the torchlight, his horns spiraling upward, casting shadows that dance across the stage. His piercing eyes gleam intelligence and hunger, his smile, predatory and inviting.

His hand brushes my arm, and a wave of heat surges through my body. My essence pours outward, untethered and radiant. Around me, the actors and satyrs fall to their knees. The amphitheatre trembles as the Chorus emerges from the void, its chant rising like the rumble of the earth. 

 

“The fire tests her trembling soul. The stage consumes to make it whole."

The satyr steps closer, his gaze locking with mine. His voice softens, intimate, a secret echo: “I feel the fire coursing through you.” 

I tremble, my voice shaking and I gesture to the actors. “Why me? Why not them?”

His smile darkens, full of knowing. “Because you resist, and that makes the fire burn brighter. The actors bow as you rise. This stage belongs to you.”

Energy surges through me, searing and intoxicating. It twists, binding me to the stage, pulling me into the satyr's orbit. Together, we become a monument of light at centre stage, a vision of power and desire intertwined. The crowd gasps, their awe mingling with terror.

His voice vibrates in the monument of light, a tender whisper that coils in my mind. “Surrender to it, Lenaea. My fire can be your destiny.”

The masked actors retreat to the edges of the stage, their movements muted as the monument of light trembles, flickering like a dying flame. Then, with a deafening crack, it collapses into a single, brilliant point of light.

The stage seems to hold its breath. For a moment, there is only darkness.

Then the light explodes outward, illuminating the amphitheatre in a sudden burst of radiance. From its centre, we emerge.

The satyr steps forward first. He pauses, turning to extend a hand to me as though offering not salvation, but an irrevocable choice.

I step into the light, its heat searing through me, igniting every nerve. The air hums with a force beyond comprehension as I stand beside him, the weight of the amphitheatre's gaze pressing on my skin.

“Do you see it now?” he asks, his tone unyielding. “You and I are the fire. We are the story.”

The crowd erupts in a thunderous roar, their cries rising and then falling into an awed, reverent silence, as if the amphitheatre itself is drawing breath.

My gaze darts to the skene. The structure's central oriface gapes open, the void pulsing faintly, its menace lingering in the shadows. At its centre, the girl—the shadow sister—reaches outward, her carved hand choreographing my steps with an unrelenting push. Her hollow eyes track me, full of accusation. 

The satyr begins to speak—to the crowd, an aside. His voice, low and deliberate.

“She stands there trembling,” he murmurs, as though reflecting aloud. “Does she even understand what this stage demands of her?”

I stiffen, “What it demands of me? What do you mean?”

The satyr's head tilts slightly. “Fear sharpens your mind and quickens your soul.”

The masked actors fall to their knees. The satyr's voice commands them. “Prove to me that she is the chosen one!”

The actors retrieve relics from the skene—fragments of scrolls, shattered mirrors, objects that thrum with power. Their movements blur into a frenzied ritual, their bodies flowing with a grace, primal and precise. Fragments of scrolls circle the actors; each bearing words I cannot read. The mirrors catch the torchlight, their cracks fracturing my reflection into something unrecognizable. 

The satyr gestures to the relics. He holds one of the mirrors aloft, its cracked surface reflecting my face in jagged fragments.

“This,” he says, his voice calm yet pointed, “is what you leave behind. The image of what you were.”

He tosses the mirror to the ground. It shatters completely, the pieces scattering like stars across the stage. The actors fall prostrate as the Chorus rises again:

"Shattered reflections scatter the past, the void awakens to claim her at last."

An actor steps forward, offering a fragment of a scroll. The satyr holds it out to me, his smile sharp and expectant. My name is scrawled on its surface, half-burned, the edges curling.

“Will you read your fate?” he asks.

I reach for it. On it is written: Chosen. But as I read the word, a question rises in my thoughts: Is this how I am supposed to feel? Power? Submission?

He says, “This is what the stage demands.” His gaze glimpses the Shadow Sister. “But the choice is not yours alone.”

He gestures to the spectators. “They watch, hungry for catharsis, their silence feeding the void. I am their voice, Lenaea. I speak what they will not say. I act what they dare not do.”

The stage shifts, the skene's darkness receding as the satyr strides forward, his body radiant and glistening beneath the torchlight. I hesitate, but the power of instinct propels me forward. My legs wrap around his powerful torso as I climb onto his back. His fur is warm, dense, and alive with movement. It's wrong, it has to be wrong, yet I can't stop. Is it the ritual binding me, or is it him?

Each of his steps vibrates through me, his rhythm syncing with my heartbeat—a primal drumbeat that binds us together. The amphitheatre fades into shadow, the performance narrowing until it centers solely on this connection, this moment between us.

As we move, the stage becomes an extension of our performance, the boundaries of reality dissolving. His body beneath me is alive, deliberate yet wild, each movement charged with purpose. My thoughts churn, sharp and insistent. How much of him do I truly command, and how much of me is already his?

The question escapes my lips, my voice low but fervent. “How do I make you mine—not just your body, but your mind and soul? How do I bind you to me?”

His body tenses beneath me, as though he hears the question as I am forming it. His reply is soft, measured, and unyielding. “You cannot claim me as a prize. To have me, Lenaea, is to give yourself. Entirely.”

The play unfolds around us, actors moving like whispers at the edges of my awareness. Yet we remain its center—a story within a story. For now, the presence of my Shadow Sister hovers in the periphery, her resentment eclipsed by the satyr's consuming presence.

The satyr kneels, his power no longer binding me, leaving only the raw connection between us—a connection as old as the theatre itself. 

From the skene, the Chorus emerges, their movements deliberate, their robes shimmering with the hues of dawn and dusk. Their masks embodying the eternal duality of the theatre.

Their chant begins, discordant at first, then rising into a haunting harmony: 

 

“Lenaea, your love has transcended mortal binds. Yet the rite remains unfinished.”

I rise, unsteady, my legs trembling as the Chorus forms a semicircle around me. Their voices intertwine, weaving a single, haunting refrain:

“The veil awaits, the threshold of transformation. Bring the essence of your journey towards its final form.”

The satyr rises beside me, his voice low and charged with emotion. “The veil is ours to cross together, Lenaea. But it is your gift to lead.”

I step forward, the faint glow of the threshold stretching out before me. My legs falter, not from exhaustion but from the weight of the choice before me. Each step feels like stepping into a story I may not survive to tell. 

The amphitheatre blurs, its walls dissolving into translucent waves of memory. Yet even here, my Shadow Sister's form flickers at the edge of the skene, resisting the pull of light.

<>

The Chorus swells into a crescendo:

“She walks the veil, the thread of fate unspooling. Her love shapes the cosmos; her soul binds the eternal stage.”

The satyr follows, his s teps in perfect harmony with mine. As we cross the threshold, the amphitheatre transforms into an expanse of endless light and colour. I feel my mortal body lift away, escaping to something lighter, freer—a form that reflects the union of my essence with his.

But even in this glowing realm, a shadow appears at the edges of the light—my Shadow Sister, no longer faint. Her hollow eyes devour the radiance, her movements mirroring mine as though she is a tether pulling me back.

The Chorus narrates, their tone solemn and absolute:

“She steps beyond the mortal frame, her love a beacon across the eons. Not death, but unity. Not sacrifice, but transcendence.”

The satyr turns to me, extending his hand. His eyes, warm yet flickering with caution, shift briefly toward the Shadow. “You are no longer bound, Lenaea. We are equals now, and this stage is ours to shape together. You see only the sacrifice, but the stage is more than death. It is creation.”

The amphitheatre dissolves into shimmering starlight, the satyr and I moving together, untethered from mortal constraints. For the first time, I feel whole—body, soul, and desire entwined. But even as the cosmos hums with echoes of our union, a question lingers, sharp and persistent: Is this wholeness real? Or another illusion, another act in the eternal play?

A faint vibration courses through me, familiar and inescapable as my Shadow Sister steps toward the starlight, her hollow eyes glinting. “You feel it, don't you?” she asks, her voice low and piercing. “The thread is pulling you back. It will not let you go.”

I shake my head, the words trembling from my lips. “I crossed the threshold. I was free!”

She tilts her head, a smirk curling at the edges of her mouth. “Free? Or was it all a ceremony of illusion? You cannot escape me, Lenaea. I am every story you leave untold.”

The starlight fractures, splintering into shards as my Shadow Sister reaches out. The satyr's voice cuts through the chaos, steady and commanding.

“Do not listen to her, Lenaea. She thrives on doubt.”

But her voice grows louder as she turns to me. “Without me, you are incomplete. Without me, you are hollow.”

The shattered starlight reforms, folding back into the amphitheatre, now silent and empty. The crowd, although complicit, bears no further witness. Only the satyr, my Shadow Sister, and I remain. The skene looms behind us, its façade carved with my story, its central oriface gaping wide, the void within swirling and alive.

The satyr tenses, his powerful frame rigid as he speaks, his voice heavy with sorrow. “I tried to save you but the stage must always have a story. And a player must always find ... release.”

My Shadow Sister steps into the light, her gaze unreadable, her voice almost coaxing. “You cannot run from me,” she says. “You created me. Now, you must finish what you began.”

I turn to the satyr, my voice breaking with desperation. “Is this what jealousy demands—a life erased, a soul devoured? How do I stop her?”

The satyr's eyes soften, but his voice is grim. “You cannot stop her now, Lenaea. This is the cost of your journey.” 

Shadow Sister's smile widens as the void surges forward, its darkness spilling from the oriface like an unstoppable tide. The skene groans to life, its carvings shifting and rippling as if alive, the void reaching for me with an inhuman hunger.

“The void ... awaits,” my Shadow Sister whispers, her tone soft and inexorable. “Surrender.”

The void growls, its voice resonant and cold:

“You cannot fight a shadow that wears your face.”

A final whisper escapes my lips, my breath shallow and fleeting: “If you take me, will anyone ever know I was here? Will even my memories disappear? 

The void pulsates now, its growl deepens, reverberating through the amphitheatre, shaking the very stones beneath my feet. I try to look away, but its pull is unrelenting, its hunger palpable. The void's reply is low, almost mocking:

“What is worse—forever silence or forever screaming?”

Despair surges through me, and the void pulls me through the oriface into its eternal shadows. I am alone.

The amphitheatre shakes, the ground beneath it trembling as the Chorus rises, their chant cutting through the air like a warning, echoing the promise of doom.

“The stage awaits, its hunger endless, bound to twisted fates.  

The Shadow Sister watches, sharp and grim, for the next sacrifice to begin.”

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